Blooms need to be bug-free

Jason Buc, Express-News

By Jason Buch

Updated 11:02 pm, Friday, February 10, 2012

Rudy Lerma, an Agricultural Specialist with U.S. Customs and Border Protection, inspects a sample of roses from a shipment of flowers from Mexico, one of the last trucks to enter the U.S. at the Colombia Solidarity Trade Bridge in Laredo, before Valentine's Day, Friday, Feb. 10, 2012. Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News
Photo: Bob Owen, San Antonio Express-News

Rudy Lerma, an Agricultural Specialist with U.S. Customs and Border...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agriculture Specialist inspects a sample from a shipment of gladiolas included in a truck of flowers from Mexico, at the Colombia Solidarity Trade Bridge in Laredo. Friday, Feb. 10, 2012. Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News
Photo: Bob Owen, San Antonio Express-News

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agriculture Specialist inspects...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agriculture Specialist Supervisor Henry Butierrez, inspects a gladiola sample from a shipment of flowers from Mexico, one of the last floral trucks to enter the U.S. at the Colombia Solidarity Trade Bridge in Laredo, before Valentine's Day. Friday, Feb. 10, 2012. Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News
Photo: Bob Owen, San Antonio Express-News

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agriculture Specialist...

David R. Gonzalez, Chief Agriculture Spcialist with the U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agriculture Quarantine Inspection office holds a specimen tube with leaf beetles collected from a shipment of flowers from Mexico, at the Colombia Solidarity Trade Bridge in Laredo. These leaf beetles, Chryromelidae Calligrapha, are banned from intering the U.S. Friday, Feb. 10, 2012. Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News
Photo: Bob Owen, San Antonio Express-News

David R. Gonzalez, Chief Agriculture Spcialist with the U.S....

A narcotics canine unit inspects a shipment of flowers from Mexico, one of the last trucks to enter the U.S. at the Colombia Solidarity Trade Bridge in Laredo, before Valentine's Day, Friday, Feb. 10, 2012. Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News
Photo: Bob Owen, San Antonio Express-News

A narcotics canine unit inspects a shipment of flowers from Mexico,...

U.S. Customs and Border Protection Agriculture Specialist Rudy Lerma pulls a sample of roses from a shipment of flowers from Mexico, for inspection before intering the U.S. The truck was one of the last floral trucks to enter the U.S. at the Colombia Solidarity Trade Bridge in Laredo, before Valentine's Day. Friday, Feb. 10, 2012. Bob Owen/San Antonio Express-News
Photo: Bob Owen, San Antonio Express-News

LAREDO — Roses are red, violets are blue and chrysomelidae are gold, green and brown with spots.

Getting a bouquet of red roses infested with gold chrysomelidae, also known as tortoise beetles, could ruin Valentine's Day.

In recent weeks, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agriculture specialists at Laredo's Colombia-Solidarity International Bridge, the No. 4 port in the country for floral imports, have been kept busy looking for tortoise beetles and other creepy crawly hitchhikers on flowers from Mexico that are being brought into the U.S. in daily truckloads.

“This week we crossed about 15 trailers,” said Gabriel Saldaña, a dispatcher for a customs broker who handles most of the floral shipments into Laredo. “Last Friday, we had about nine trailers. It's been a busy season.”

Busier than last year, which already was a booming year for flowers — booming to the tune of $881 million, according to the Society of American Florists.

Flower imports during the Jan. 1 to Feb. 14 Valentine's Day season increased by 150 percent from 2010 to 2011, climbing to 320.8 million stems, according to CBP. Of those, more than 80 percent came through Miami, and most of those came from Colombia. Ecuador is the second-largest supplier of flowers and Mexico is third.

Laredo handled 2.3 percent of the total Valentine's Day flowers imported last year. But the 18.6 million flower stems that came through this border city, the largest port on the Mexican border, made it one of the top import points in the nation.

This year in Laredo, the shipment volume peaked last week.

The three to four trailers crossing almost every weekday exceeds the two or three trailers a day, three days a week, that the port handled this time last year.

A truck full of flowers, including Valentine's Day favorites roses and lilies, that crossed into the U.S. here Friday was the last of the season. The flowers were headed to Dallas, Chicago, Milwaukee and cities in Canada.

“More people are in love,” Saldaña said.

For agriculture specialists, the increase meant more time looking for beetles, slugs, snails and moth larvae hidden in the flowers. Inspectors take about 2 percent of each truckload — more for high-risk commodities like gladiolas, which are known to carry pests — and shake them out onto tables covered in white butcher paper.

If a pest falls out, inspectors have to quickly get the bug in a vial before it escapes, said David Gonzalez, CBP's chief agriculture specialist in Laredo. Inspectors for the U.S. Agriculture Department examine the pests and determine if the shipment can be fumigated, or if it needs to go back to Mexico.

“If it's coming in from one environment to a different environment where the pest may not have natural enemies, it could reproduce exponentially and we will have an outbreak on our hands,” Gonzalez said.

In a city where federal agents focus on the drug war, even the floral import business is subject to corruption. In 2008, FBI agents here arrested three USDA inspectors and a local exterminator and charged them with importing floral greens that had not been properly fumigated.

Friday's load was clean. Inspectors didn't find any pests and sent the truck on its way.

Most of the flowers imported through Laredo come from Villa Guerrero, a city in a mountainous area of central Mexico.

Villa Guerrero is perfect for flower growing because it has warm days, cool evenings, plenty of rain and various elevations that allow farmers to grow different species, said Kim Pacanins, manager at San Antonio-based Continental Floral Greens.

Continental is the largest greens grower in the U.S., importing flowers and greens from Mexico as well, Pacanins said. In the weeks leading up to Valentine's Day, Continental's imports increase from about five or six trucks a week to 15 or 16, she said.

“We also have farms in California and Florida as well, but we do huge volumes out of Mexico,” Pacanins said.